Footballs used in professional and amateur leagues are usually comprised of an inflatable rubber bladder covered with a sewn leather carcass. However, such leather footballs are relatively expensive and tend to not hold up well over time and repeated use.
Thus, for playground, so-called "pick-up" and "sand-lot" and intramural type uses, Where cost is very important, footballs made of rubber have become predominant. Such rubber footballs (e.g. see Henderson U.S. Pat. No. 2,687,303) are typically made by wrapping an inflatable rubber bladder With nylon cloth and vulcanizing on a rubber cover. These types of rubber footballs hold up very well over time and use.
A problem with the prior art rubber footballs is that they tend to be very hard, especially at the tip region on each end. The primary players using rubber footballs tend to be young children and those inexperienced with the game of football. The risk of injury, potentially even serious injury such as to eyes, to players using such hard tipped football is very real.
To overcome to some extent the above-mentioned problem, namely the hardness of footballs, manufacturers have produced soft footballs made from soft foam rubber or foam plastic and the like (see for instance U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,241,918 and 4,337,944). The prior art soft footballs tend to not look or behave like regular footballs. They tend to not travel as far when kicked, thrown, or dropped, nor do they "feel" like regular footballs.